I haven’t gotten to this level yet, but I was wondering what the “softcap” level for 4* characters would be? I guess this is a 2 part question: What level does the Iso cost go up alot (ie: 3* past lvl 120) and what levels do you increase a group of characters until you finally go all in and put them at 270? I currently have 4 4* characters that I can push higher than my lvl 166 3*s but I want to raise a larger group up at the same time. Thanks for any responses!
Depends on what you’re wanting to do with them.
At level 220, a maxed 3* at 166 will tank the primary colour of a 4*.
4* match damage starts to take over from 3* after that point.
There’s no hard and fast rule about how high you should push your 4s. After hitting 220, I then pushed my frontline 4s to level 250. It costs a bit over 78k iso to level them from 250 to 270, and you hardly gain anything in terms of match damage and ability damage for that investment, although you do gain in health. I’ve only recently levelled IMHB and JG to 270 from 250.
The exception to the rule is Px, where you don’t want his strongest colour (blue) to exceed GSBW and SW when he’s boosted. Level 166 is safe with Px from that perspective.
It depends who they are. If guys like Elektra, Faptain, Star-Lord (i.e., in the bottom half of the tier) then them having higher levels will actually hinder you more than help you, and so don’t bother. If they’re good ones, like Hulkbuster, Jean, Iceman, etc., then try go 10-15 levels at a time, play a few events and see if the increased scaling is manageable.
Personally, how far above the pack I’ll go is dependent on how many of them I can take. If only 2-4, I won’t go much further than the rest of my characters. At the 3* level, I didn’t really start raising my characters until I knew I had about 6 reliables that I could take at the same time. I’ve been following the same rule with 4*'s, which is why I capped them at 175. The only ones in my roster that have enough covers that are in the top half of the tier are Thoress and Jean, so I’m stuck there for the forseeable future.
Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind when I open up my boatload of tokens whenever the new update takes place. I should have over 200 tokens from various events to open up at that point and will hopefully get a decent amount of 4*s out if it. 
Great chart aesthetocyst!
On behalf of everyone, thank you for those charts.
This has changed without people acknowledging it, Mr Fantastic, Ghost Rider and Venom all arent exactly great 4 stars themselves, all 3 you listed can do more damage easier then these 3 can. Ghost rider require you get beat up, venoms strongest moves require tiles and making the enemy team stronger + more resistant to damage, Fantastic is just plain bad.
As niche as elektra and star lord are, they at least don’t make the enemy team stronger with passives/ have 1 trick.
The string of 4’s after jean and iceman have kinda shown the developers are kinda just flooding the tier with questionable characters.
thx aes. that info is gold.
I’m very early in 4* play, maybe halfway through the transition, so other more experienced 4* players will likely have info with more weight behind it. I have my top 2 for pvp at 250 (don’t see the ROI beyond that for now - will max eventually but way too many other iso needs for now). my ddq level is 145 - all characters that I think have a chance I try and get to 145. IW is the only one I’m leaving lower because she doesn’t need it. between I’ve brought a few up (those I think will be worth it like kp, rulk, 4thor, xf) into the ~180 range and can play them with my 3*s and they are 227 with weekly boosts. (NOTE: that is just past where their costs start increasing) I probably will want that group raised to 200 or so, but only 1 of them is at 13 covers, so not clamoring for that. getting real close to giving in on putting iso into SS, but I’m being really wishy washy on that - pve t50 and LT are pretty easy still and if that gets screwy i’ll be pretty bummed. on the other hand if I can cut my hopping hp spending in half, it’ll be worth it.
I would really love to see the chart for the 5s. I still have not started leveling them, so it would help a lot to know how much is going to cost (when I have enough covers 
)
And great work!
I’d love to see the 5* graph, too. I’ve been leveling Silver Surfer (345 now!) and it’s been baffling to me how costs go up and down between levels.
Nice graphs, but I think cumulative costs would be more informative (e.g. how much of a total difference is there between two given levels).
Big thanks to OJSP and Aesthetocyst for those graphs.
Be careful, though! Post too many numbers in here and you’re going to get this post moved to the Statistics subforum, where we will never see nor hear from it again.
Which JUST happened to a thread of mine like two days ago.
*sigh
That is indeed baffling.
I believe I’m well qualified to answer OP. My max level for 4 
is at 181 b/c if he is featured for a pve event, he’ll be boosted to level 271. If you consider pve scaling, the higher the buffed 4
, the higher your scaling will be. And since I’m a competitive t10 pve player, I can’t afford that. Thus, for me personally 181 is my max softcap.
Additionally, I have a bunch of 4
set at 173 for two reasons. First is the cost of iso will increase at a higher rate beyond 170s, as noted in the charts. Second, at 173 the character’s health will be around 9.000, which is quite decent for general pve/pvp/shield use.
Alternatively, if you don’t have any 5
on your roster, and you’re a 3
transitioner, you might want to consider having everyone at 166 for mmr/pve scaling.
This as well as the chart from aes hits everything and more as to what I was looking forward to right now. I always see you at the top of my PvE bracket so I’ll definitely take your word
puppychow. Thanks for all the great info again everyone.
Just as a bit of a counterpoint, I went to a similar point when I leveled my first 3s to max (put my best 4s only up to about there). I’ve since leveled those top 4*s (Jean, Red Hulk, IMHB, Cyclops) to about 210 (not enough iso to go higher) for PvP help and have maintained top-10 PvE all along (top-2 for Miles’ release).
Scaling gets a little wonky when one of those is essential, but not unmanageably so.
As mentioned, PX is his own special brand.
I parked all of mine at 172: this is a nice spot where you can hit the “max” button at 8 (if it’s 5/2/1) or 9 (other configurations) covers…I hate leveling level by level, takes forever. Some have mentioned about here is where the price starts to go up, and they are usable for PVE. I’ve been beating all the 4* DDQ’s with 172’s, so that’s a good spot for that as well. I’ll probably go up to ~220 (another ISO jump around there) eventually, for DDQ reasons.
But for PVP I’m a strong advocate of 270, and not soft-capping. 220/250 (where you stop getting damage boosts) indicate at best “weak” (not as much health) and possibly worse “under-covered” (easy) when folks are quickly choosing who to attack.
I planned on capping mine at 255, so that they’re up to par with the scaling that’ll result from inevitably having all three 5*'s sitting in my roster at 1-2 covers.
Agree 100% on this part. In pvp, you are more likely to get hit when you use a level 250 character instead of a 270 character. Especially when the character is boosted, the discrepancy increases.
Basic psychology at work here. Should I hit someone who has two maxed character or someone with un-max characters if both yield the same amount of points? Obviously the latter.